Zimbabwe’s back on the travel map

Nov 4, 2012

I woke up this morning with a rare chance to read the papers in bed (unheard of with a 3 month baby & 3 children at home!!). And decided it was time to reconnect a bit on BozAround to share an inspiring reading “Zimbabwe – The Great Wide re-Open“. As Lucia Van der Post from the FT How to Spend It puts it, Long ago I (too) fell in love with Zimbabwe. It was a coup de foudre.

When I was 19 years old studying economics in Paris, I worked as a flight-attendant for a summer job. I got a chance to spend a week in Zimbabwe courtesy of my employer. Air France had only one flight a week to Harare, so we’d fly there as a crew, had our nights at the Hilton Harare paid for, and wait for the return flight. Aside from the years I had spent as a child in Algeria, I had never been to Africa before.

With 2 other crew members, we decided to venture in the country. No lonely planets, no mobile phones and needless to say no internet connections back then. It was real adventure as we drove thousands of kilometers thru the country with our rental car, mesmerized by everything on the way. I remember crying as I stared at the elephants drinking in the Zambezi river before it turns into the majestic Victoria falls. I remember screaming as we went down the Zambezi again, white-water rafting. And I still remember the meditative contemplation in front of the African sunrise in our lodge where the giraffs came to drink nearby our room. That week in Zimbabwe turned out to be a life-changing experience for me. I am beyond thrilled as I type this that maybe the first country in Africa where I will take my children will be Zimbabwe.

The article says it all and here’s the link with the author’s recommendations on how to plan a trip. It makes a good case for the fact that Zimbabwe right now is probably one of the most affordable safari destination in Africa “a wilder, less crowded, more appealing Africa” within a newly-found relative stability (politically and economically). August is a perfect month to go there, just at the beginning of the African spring. Start planning that next summer family trip!